Richard Feynman on Depression Quotes

"I'm an explorer. I like to find out."

"The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it."

"I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough."

"I was burnt out and I did not think I could do anything anymore. I had no more ideas, and I was just going to teach my classes and that was that."

"I've already found the land of my dreams, and I'm happy. I don't need anything else."

"You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing."

"It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong."

"I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing—it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with."

"I had to decide that I was not going to be responsible for the world."

"I was very discouraged. I didn't think I could do anything. But then I saw that plate wobbling in the cafeteria."

"There is no harm in saying 'I don't know.'"

"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird."

"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future."

"The only way to keep going is to find something that you love to do."

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

"I was in a terrible state. I felt that the world was not going to last, so why build anything? Why do anything? I felt that I was just wasting my time."

"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."

"If you're teaching a class, you have to think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful."

"I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!"

"I was always very frustrated by the fact that I didn't know enough. But I've learned to live with it."

"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

"I am alone in the dark, but I am not afraid."

"Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter."

"Everything is made of atoms. That is the most important thing to know."

"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible."

"I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned."

"I had this feeling of social irresponsibility—that I didn't have to be good because they expect me to be good. I could just be myself."

"I'm not going to do any more work that I don't want to do. I'm just going to play with physics."

"To not know is not a failure. It is an opportunity."

"I would go to a cafe and I would see people building a bridge and I would think, 'They don't understand, the world is going to end.'"

"I feel like I'm a fake. I'm not doing what they think I'm doing. I'm just playing."

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong."

"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose."